Fashion, Feelings and Fate
by stormcane
Summary: Here's a story of how Alice went from her birth as a vampire to her meeting with Jasper and the Cullens. How she earned a fortune big enough to afford her fashion obsession and how she became obsessed with fashion in the first place.


**Chapter 1. The Haunted Warehouse**

1920s. There was an area in Biloxi, Mississipi where people were afraid to go to, and for good reason. Amidst the scraggly trees that littered the narrow trail leading from the main road, an old warehouse stands rusting. A haunted warehouse that used to belong to a wholesaler of grains and fruits.

The original owners have long fled the place, with the land title passing from one buyer to another. No one really considered the piece of property a good investment, even thieves looking for a hideout avoided the place, because there was a legend that the warehouse was haunted. Any human that sought to inhabit the place had to deal with noises that could only mean a poltergeist was on the loose.

Chairs would move on their own, Thick wooden beams would tumble from construction piles with the slightest breeze, and a faint howling would come from the walls themselves, as if the spirit that's guarding the warehouse still mourned the leaving of the original owners.

The ghost in question, however, was not a spectre but a vampire. She called herself Alice.

Alice woke up as a vampire in the forest without knowing where she came from and what she was. She stumbled around in her torn white garment, half-insane with thirst. She was following the smell of what would be her first meal, the homeless wino that sought refuge in the abandoned place for who knows how long.

She stayed in the basement long after she had drained all the blood from the unfortunate man's veins, shocked at what she had done, and trying to figure out exactly what kind of monster she was. She soon found herself burying the man in a shallow grave nearby and returning to take his spot as the only inhabitant of the warehouse.

She stayed in the dark basement, feeding on the rats that still sought out the sacks of rotting fruit and grain left behind by workers when it was too sunny for her to be outside. Rat blood was vile, but she didn't suffer from the guilt of killing another human being. She discovered that she liked the dark, and not being able to see anything was a familiar feeling. The dark served as a good backdrop for the various visions that became her dreams.

She had no idea if being able to see these visions came with being a blood drinker, and for a while she taught herself how to pretend that everything was a dream, including the visions that flashed across her mind every once in a while.

One particular vision stood out, and it was of a man with golden locks. A fierce-looking man with ruby eyes. He didn't scare her. Quite the opposite, she was glad she was able to view his face in the darkness, much like he was keeping her company. Sometimes, she would see visions of the man smiling at her, they would be lying in bed together. His was the face she already loved, and she wondered when she would see the man in person.

It didn't take long for Alice to realize that her visions are not random. Sometimes, they serve as a warning for what's to come. Like that time she saw a vision of the old warehouse being converted into a grain mill. Not a week passed when people started coming in with lumber, wind turbines and steel, tearing down the walls of her temporary home. She did everything in her power to scare them off, except to show herself. She rattled the pipes and laughed silently as the night watchman scurried away screaming about ghosts. Soon construction was halted, and she was alone again.

She liked the fact that people wouldn't go near her humble abode anymore and she would go as far as to blow air into the rusting pipes under the floorboards to scare any passing humans away. She did this partly because she was afraid of committing what to her was a sin in order to sate her thirst for human blood, and partly because she liked the old place and was unwilling to share.

But the main reason why she refused to drink human blood was the consequence of doing so.

Her guilt at killing the first time faded immediately as soon as she got thirsty again. Despite her initial misgivings, she found herself going around town looking for the dregs of society, or those that others wouldn't miss. She drank painfully, but eagerly, as her thirst was too great. But after a while, she realized that her visions of the beautiful blonde man occurred less and less as she kept drinking human blood.

It was only after feeding for three straight days in town that she understood the gravity of this consequence. She didn't see the man in her vision again and it broke her heart. She grieved and concentrated on her visions but he never reappeared. Other dreams would appear, but the man was not among them.

Out of desperation, she stopped feeding on humans entirely and fed only on animals and vermin. After three months of denying herself the sweetness of human blood, her visions of the man she had fallen in love with returned.

He appeared in her mind as she was draining the blood of a wild dog, and she was so shocked that she almost dropped her prey. The moment the blood ran out, Alice leapt to the air in exultation and the vision became clearer.

In the vision, he was smiling, taking her gloved hand and they were running together on snowy ground. Her conclusion was that she would someday meet the man of her dreams as long as she kept feeding on animals and not humans. The promise of meeting him in the future if she resisted killing humans strengthened her resolve.

Her one-sided love for the man had grown strong enough as an incentive for her to keep the overwhelming thirst for human blood at bay. She would never, ever, lose him again. Thus, she resisted the pull of delicious scents coming from town and the highway, choosing to hunt wild animals that littered the forest behind the warehouse to ward off the thirst. She stole from nearby animal farms when hunting in the forest was unproductive.

* * *

Today, something was happening to her comfortable, albeit temporary, home. The old warehouse was being converted again, and Alice glared maliciously at the humans littering her usual haunt from her spot behind a large shrub. The sky was overcast, which hid her unique vampiric skin from human eyes. As she watched, she plotted ways to derail the construction of the new building. She knew what the new building would look like, as she saw it in her vision. L'Espoire de Mavie Ltd., a textile firm.

Her nostril flared in anger and her throat burned with thirst as a plethora of luscious scents reached her. A big truck came. Big, hulking men swarmed the site. Workers, she surmised. All were carrying tools and bags of cement. There were so many that she was tempted to take one before anyone noticed. Then again, she thought of the blonde man in her vision and she quickly disregarded the thought. She would go hunting right after she has developed a plan to scare these people away.

"Huh! Ghost or no ghost, this place is worth double what you paid for it." A burly looking man wearing a hard hat was saying gleefully to a lanky one with long silvery hair. "No vermin in sight, even the basement is spotless! What a steal for a place that's supposedly haunted!" The big man was shaking his head, laughing softly.

"_Bien alors_! I am not afraid of any ghost!" the lanky one exclaimed in a high-pitched voice to the area being demolished in front of him, flipping his hair over his shoulder in a defiant manner. "If _zher_ is indeed a ghost in my workshop, I say come out! Come out so I can dress you in beau_-zee-_ful clothes!"

Alice stared at the man with the silver hair from head to toe. He was wearing a grey suit and brown leather shoes. In one hand, he carried a cane that looked like it was meant to make him look more dashing rather than a tool used for walking. He was perfect. Well, not as perfect as the lovely blonde man in her vision, but handsome enough for her to regard him with awe. He smelled good to her, too.

Alice perked up at the man's words. A thrill ran through her body as she realized the man was addressing her. There was only one undead inhabitant in the warehouse, and it was her. She was the 'ghost' he was talking to.

Just then, a shapely woman stepped out of the limousine and went to the silver-haired man's side. She was dressed in a fabric that looked like it was molded from pure gold. She wore a shawl trimmed with fur. The fitted skirt stopped just below her knees, and the contours of her body shimmered as she leaned fluidly to whisper something to the man.

"_Alons-y, mon amour_." She murmured. Speaking in a musical language that sounded as silky smooth as her long brown hair.

Alice self-consciously adjusted the filthy rags covering her body and smoothed her scraggly black hair. For the first time since she woke up as a vampire, she felt awkward and ugly in the wasted grey scrap of fabric she was wearing. I want that gold dress, she said in her mind, and an unexpected craving welled in her consciousness as she regarded the woman with unmistakable envy. This time, she wasn't lusting after the woman's blood, she was lusting after the clothes on her body.

Over the next weeks, Alice kept tabs on the progress of the construction like a loyal watch dog. She built a shack for herself in the forest and finally dispensed of her ragged nightgown. Nowadays, she sported a new navy blue skirt, filched from a downtown boutique, and a baby blue blouse underneath a matching cardigan sweater. She looked drab in comparison to the woman she saw that day, but these would have to do for now. She wasn't above petty theft, but the remnants of her human pride made it painful for her to steal more clothes from shops.

"No", Alice whispered aloud, "I'm going to find a job and buy my own clothes."

Suddenly, a vision of her blonde prince appeared. He was suppressing a laugh while carrying her shopping bags filled with clothes. She gasped as she saw what the future held for her. She realized that her future husband would be very supportive of her new-found interest and that thought pleased her to no end. She clasped her hands over her heart at the vision, thanking the man silently for going shopping with her.

Back on site, she listened to the conversations of the workers, including the foreman, who was the only one that reported to Jacques Delacours, the new owner of the warehouse. He came from Paris and made it big catering to the whims of the American fashion elite. Jacques Delacours was a fashion designer that owned clothing stores in different states. The woman was his wife, a model that used to wear the clothes he designed on various runways. Alice shivered. A fashion model! No wonder she was dressed so nicely.

She also paid more attention to her visions of the future, particularly what she was wearing when she saw herself with the blonde man by her side. One vision that recurred was of her and the blonde man walking the streets of Paris, oblivious to the other shoppers around. They were dressed to the nines, their various accessories set in the color matching their eyes. For some reason, the man's eyes in the more recent visions are set in the same color as hers, even when his eyes looked more red than yellow in earlier visions. She didn't know yet what this meant, but she was happy that she was seeing more of her future with the man of her dreams.

She enjoyed these visions more and more, as she learned about the humans she had been stalking and the industry they belong to. Then, while she was watching the workers tie a red opening ribbon across the front door of the converted warehouse, she had another one.

She screamed silently in delight. She was going to join L'Espoire soon, as an employee.

* * *

"Alice, see to it that every-_zhing_ _ees_ ready for tomorrow, _non_?" Olivier asked his nightshift worker in his nagging voice, out of habit, as he really didn't need to remind her. She had been working in the factory for a year and she had been his most dependable employee to date. His only employee, in fact, because all the others left in haste as soon as they realized what a bitter, drunken slave driver Olivier was. The help wanted sign has been tacked to the front door for several months now.

Olivier was the younger brother of Jacques, but unlike his elegant older brother, the younger Frenchman was more of a frustrated garment designer than a real one. He often swallowed his bitterness of his brother's success, made worse when he was ordered to take care of the garment processing in a backwater county which involved redoing and refurbishing garments and textiles that are not selling well in city stores. It was a tedious and humiliating job for Olivier, but it was a dream come true for Alice.

She went to him one afternoon, with her carefully written application letter and newly borrowed leather shoes. She claimed to be new to the county and would take any job. She put the address of a nearby hotel as her place of residence. Olivier looked her over, briefly stepping closer to stare at her brown-gold eyes, and put her to work at once, insinuating that she will not be paid until after she finished every job that all the other employees left behind.

He slurred his speech, and often spoke in straight French, without taking into account that she couldn't speak the language. One time, he said something about her choice of clothing, which she later discovered meant _'you dress like you're from the mountains'_. Another time, he said something that meant '_the color of your shoes clash with the color of your bag, you greenhorn_'.

She soon got herself a dictionary and learned the language properly to be able to respond with a smart retort. She even sought him out for advice on occasion more to remind herself that she needed his tutelage, that he knew more about fashion than her. And that she must never _ever_ rip out his throat no matter what he said about her budding fashion sense.

His crass behaviour made her furious, and his scent reminded her of the wino she fed on during her first night as a vampire, but she persisted. Now she had a new motivation besides the ever-present vision of her blonde future lover. She saw herself in the future as a stylist for VIPs, being paid huge sums by rich clients, and so she would take whatever knowledge she can from Olivier. She was on her way to learning everything about clothing!

And learn, she did.

She was educated by Olivier in the seasonal changes in the fashion world, and she learned how to handle each fabric type properly. She had a natural flair for color matching and garment adjustment. Once she was able to keep her strong fingers from destroying all the delicate pins in the workroom, she volunteered to do the hemming herself.

As always, he had given her specific instructions to clean the first and second floors, arrange the bolts of textiles according to shade and make, box up some of the rejected garments for shipping to charitable institutions, and salvage accessories from the rejected designs if they could still be used. She was also asked to match bags and shoes, to complete an ensemble for an avant-garde piece that was being converted for ready-to-wear.

He expected her to be finished by the time she left in the morning. What would he be doing? Olivier slept soundly throughout the night while Alice worked, so that he could look well-rested and smug in the morning when the delivery truck, and sometimes Jacques himself, came around.

"Oui, Monsieur." Alice chirped cheerfully to his retreating figure, gritting her teeth.

Alice went home to her shack that morning with some of the rejected pieces for her to try on. Soon she would have to seek out a large cave, preferably one she could sieze from its animal inhabitants, to store all her boxes of garments, fashion books and growing accessories collection.


End file.
